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1800
- 1800 Census: Population about 5.3 million people.
- 30 August. Gabriel Prosser's plan to lead Virginia slaves in rebellion is revealed.
- The Library of Congress is established. In 1815, Thomas Jefferson's library of 7,000 volumes will be purchased.
- In Philadelphia, free African Americans petition Congress to end the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793.
- Congress convenes in Washington, D. C. for the first time.
- John Chapman, a.k.a. "Johnny Appleseed," begins dispensing apple seeds and seedlings to settlers in Ohio.
- Thomas Jefferson is chosen as president over incumbent John Adams in a contested election that is decided in the House of Representatives; Aaron Burr becomes vice-president. With this election, the Federalist party loses control of the presidency and of Congress.
1750-1754
1755-1759
- 1758 General Montcalm and his French troops are defeated at Fort Ticonderoga, New York.
- 1758 Jonathan Edwards becomes president of the College of New Jersey, later Princeton University.
- 1759 Quebec surrenders to the British under Wolfe.
1700-1704
- 1700 Massachusetts representative assembly orders all Roman Catholic priests to vacate the colony within three months, an action also taken by the New York legislature.
Population of the American colonies: about 275,000 people. Boston has 7,000 people and New York 5,000.
- 1702-1713 Queen Anne's War (War of the Spanish Succession)
- 1704 28-29 February. Deerfield, Massachusetts is destroyed and 100 residents are abducted, a consequence of Queen Anne's War
1650-1654
- 1652 Massachusetts general court rules that the territory of Maine lies within the boundaries of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, thus ending Maine's immediate hopes of independence.
1655-1659
- 1656 (Summer) Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans whip, imprison, and banish the first Quakers to arrive in the colony. Legislation in 1658 bars the Quakers from holding their services, called "meetings."
- 22 September. In Maryland, an all-woman jury, the first in the colonies, acquits Judith Catchpole on charges of murdering her unborn child.
- 1659. 27 October. Quakers William Robinson and Marmaduke Stephenson are hanged for refusing to leave Massachusetts. Mary Dyer, a follower of Anne Hutchinson and later a Quaker, is scheduled to hang with them but is reprieved at the last minute.
1670-1674
- 1670 Hudson's Bay Company is chartered.
- 1673 Marquette and Joliet travel from Lake Michigan down the Mississippi as far as the Arkansas River, completing a 2500-mile journey of exploration.
1675-1679
- 1675-78 King Philip's War. It begins when Metacomet (King Philip) leads an attack against Swansea in retaliation for the Plymouth colony's execution of three Wampanoag tribe members. Metacomet is betrayed and shot on 12 August 1676, and the war formally ends when Sir Edmond Andros makes peace in Maine on 12 April 1678.
1500-1549
- 1512: Spanish Laws of Burgos forbid enslavement of Indians and advocate Christian conversion.
- 1514: Bartolome de las Casas petitions Spanish crown on behalf of Native Americans
- 1519-1521 Cortes's conquest of Aztecs in Mexico.
- 1528-1536 A member of the Narvaez expedition, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca is shipwrecked first near Tampa Bay and later on Galveston Island off the coast of what is now Texas. After six years spent among the Indians of the region, he and his companions travel westward across Texas and Mexico.
- 1540-1542 Seeking gold first in the city of Cibola, reportedly larger and richer than Mexico City, and then in Quivera, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado leads an expeditionary force through the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, with much loss of life among the area's native peoples. He returns to Mexico City in 1542 and dies in 1544.
- 1542 Urged on by Bartolome de las Casas and others, Carlos V enacts the "New Laws" designed to end the encomienda system that enslaves native people.
